NOT BAD FOR AN HOUR IN A THUNDERSTORM—Sorry Rockford Area Historical Society, Squire editor Beth Altena meant to spend only an hour in the woods before the 7 p.m. meeting on Thursday, May 3, but couldn’t leave with morels turning up everywhere. This pile was collected in just two hours.

Usually May is Morel Month in Michigan, but the early spring weather apparently caused the mushrooms to pop up sooner and perhaps disappear before their typical season would even be well underway.

Squire Editor Beth Altena had a great time hunting mushrooms last week and found so many it was hard not to step on them. In a usual season, the first week of May is a little early for any serious foraging. This year, May 3 saw many morels in the secret hunting grounds already spoiled. Fortunately, however, there were plenty of others to make up for the overgrown toppled morels.

MORELS IN CLUMPS ARE FUN TO FIND—This picture shows just six morels in a Rockford woods, but the mushrooms seemed to be everywhere—a rare occurrence, unfortunately.

In the woods at the Altena family home, a few mushrooms are usually popping up about this time of year, but a great big six-inch one was already suffering from slug damage and toppling when it was spotted.

Other mushroom-hunting readers may be enjoying this strange season, and the Squire would love the chance to share pictures and stories with our readers. E-mail them to squiremail@aol.com.

Readers Jack and Barb Palazzolo sent the Squire this picture of three deer who swam across Big Brower Lake Saturday, April 28. We wonder what would prompt the deer to undertake such an endeavor. If any readers have an answer, we'd love to hear it. E-mail squiremail@aol.com. Thanks for the photograph.

Jeff O'Malley

What a beautiful but windy spring we have had in West Michigan this year!

Playing golf on windy days can be very difficult and lead to frustration if you don’t know what you are doing. Following are a few ideas that you might want to think about when playing in the wind.

When the wind is strong, you may need to widen your putting stance just a little. It helps to stabilize your body in the wind. In addition, in a strong wind we have the tendency to swing faster or harder, so focus on keeping your swing tempo within yourself for better results.

Anyone who has been playing golf for a while knows that shots into the wind often require one or two more clubs. The opposite is true with the wind at your back—you’ll need less club. When considering your shot into the green, remember it is better to be long instead of short where most of those nasty bunkers are located!

A fun shot to play on windy days is a punch shot. This shot keeps the ball low, so it is not as affected by the wind. I like to set up with the ball position back in my open stance, hands forward of the ball so to de-loft the club, and when I swing I keep my hands low with a short follow through. I don’t want my hands to release. Practice this shot and then try it on a windy day. You will see a nice low trajectory shot with great results.

IN GOOD COMPANY—These fine folks from Rockford Ambulance, United Bank and other Rockford businesses are proud to be part of the inaugural Big Daddy Duck Race. There is only one more duck to purchase, so don't delay to be part of this group.

Rockford Rotary Club has provided scholarship funding for the Rockford Public Schools (RPS) Summer Reading Program for several years. Last year, the funds raised fell short of the increased need.

“Reading is critical for success in school and life,” said Lisa Jacobs, executive director of RPS Community Services, “and the summer reading program is an important strategy to help young students be successful readers.”

The three-week program, each July, helps young students maintain what they learned in the previous school year and prepare for the new school year.

Rockford Rotary President Sue Bodenner designated this year’s annual Duck Race as the fundraiser to fund the summer reading program at a higher level and have additional funds for a special literacy project. As Jacobs reviews summer reading program needs and ideas with Bodenner, another type of planning is happening. Local businesses are sponsoring Big Daddy Ducks for $100 each for the first race on June 9 during Start of Summer.

“There are just two rules for the Big Daddy Duck Race of 22 large ducks: no motor and no whining if you lose!” stated Rotarian Erik Luxhoj, chair.

The Facebook page has evidence of ducks going through training and enhancements and “all in support of better readers” said Corner Bar Manager John Vanaman.

“I hope your duck drowns,” said Jim Bodenner to Rockford Ambulance's Roger Morgan. Big boys don't always play nice, but it is all for a good cause: to fund summer reading programs for Rockford kids.

Rogue River Red Hats to the staff of Rockford Ambulance all agree that it was an irresistible way to raise funds for this good cause—and they might just win the unique traveling trophy designed by Justin Kauffman and Gary Davis. There is just one big duck left. The 2,000 tickets for the regular Rockford Rotary Duck Race go on sale before May 1. Check Facebook page “Big Daddy Duck Race” to find out businesses involved, where to get tickets and the prizes being offered to get readers of The Rockford Squire involved to help young readers in our community. For more information e-mail to rockfordmirotary@gmail.com or call Erik Luxhog at (616) 884-0694.

Photo by CLIFF HILL

Those pesky “Bucky Beavers” have been busy this past winter and spring above the dam and along both sides of the Rogue River.

No tree, regardless of size, appears to be safe from “Bucky”! This huge tree, some 4 ft. in diameter (species undetermined) stands between the Rogue River Nature Trail boardwalk and the river about 70 ft. north of the Gazebo on the west side of the dam.

The City has placed chicken wire screening around the tree over the gnawed area and this fix seems to be working. It’s a good thing because, if felled, this monster tree could make a splash that might create a Tsunami and knock the Rockford Historical Society Museum right off its foundation!

The Squire would love to know what variety of tree this is and perhaps the “tree huggers” of Rockford might want to take a stroll over to Bucky’s work site and let the paper know.

The feature event this year is a Michigan amphibian and reptile exhibit by Nature Discovery. See what animals live in a wetland! Nature/science-inspired activities will be presented for children along with the annual duck race in Bear Creek. There will be live music by Hawks & Owls.

A free raffle will be held throughout the morning. Donations by sponsors include a Frozen Creek Floral gift basket, gift certificate for kayak rental and picnic basket provided by Rogue River Rentals, gift certificate for canoe rental by AAA Canoe Rental with a gift certificate for a picnic lunch by Ric’s Food Center, gift certificate for Picnic Pops at Cannonsburg Ski Resort (donated by Choice One Bank) with a gift certificate for a picnic provided by D&W.

Squire reporters Cliff and Nancy Hill, holding copies of Rockford’s hometown newspaper, stand alongside Mary Diosdado, one of the original SAS shoemakers. With 36 years of prideful handcrafting of SAS shoes, Mary is now daily ensconced in a seat of honor in the company’s General Store/shoe outlet, where she demonstrates her skill in hand-sewing vamps to the uppers of the company’s extensive line of comfort shoes.

For the past two weeks, the Rockford Squire has been visiting San Antonio in south Texas and the “hill-country” surrounding the jewel of a city. No different than avid regular Squire readers, we took copies of our hometown newspaper along on the journey seeking a great photo-op.

Granted, Texas is not necessarily one of the most exotic places our well-traveled newspaper has ever visited, but never the less a great picture taking opportunity occurred when we visited the factory and the adjacent outlet store of San Antonio Shoemakers (SAS).

The Rockford community, being the world headquarters of Wolverine World Wide, is steeped in the history of shoemaking and we couldn’t believe our good fortunes to be able to take a behind the scenes peek at the SAS shoemaking facility.

SAS, established in 1976, is one of a scant few remaining American shoemaking companies who continue to make shoes right here in the USA. Specializing in handcrafted comfort shoes, SAS believes that “life is a journey and why not wear comfortable shoes along the way”. Every day SAS prides itself on working to make sure their name continues to stand for superb craftsmanship and extraordinary comfort. The Company strives to make their shoes so comfortable that you don’t want to take them off!

We were 2 of a 47-member Holiday Vacations tour group spending 9 days seeing and experiencing everything that the San Antonio, Texas area has to offer. On the day of our visit to SAS, the shoe company divided us into groups of ten to be led by one of the company’s experienced shoemakers. On the floors of two different shoemaking facilities, our guide led us from one shoemaking station to the next while the factories were in full operation.

We were able to follow a style of shoe as it was being made from start to finish. Not exactly the same-old, same-old vacation itinerary, but never the less it was an educational blast!

Not taking a merchandising backseat to WWW, the SAS guides concluded our shoemaking tutorial with a visit to the company’s General Store/factory shoe outlet. Our tour group must have been sold on what they witnessed on the factory floors that afternoon, as almost each and every one had their shoe size personally measured, the good old-fashioned way, by SAS employees in order to take advantage of the great values offered. You know women when it comes to shoes, right? One tour guest was seen purchasing 3 pair and almost everyone, men included, returned home with a new pair of SAS shoes.

Our Holiday Vacations tour group was composed of folks from 11 different states across the USA. During our extended stay in the San Antonio area, we enjoyed area attractions almost too numerous to mention. At the top of the list was the outstanding 15-mile San Antonio River Walk. The River Walk winds below street level in the very heart of downtown San Antonio and reaches out both north and south from the city. The banks of the River Walk are lushly landscaped and are lined with restaurants offering every possible culinary experience. From Texas steakhouses to authentic Mexican to French cuisine, there was something for every palate.

The River Walk was a visual cornucopia of peoples from all over the world enjoying one another while taking advantage of guided riverboat cruises that whet their appetites for their own walking tours along the San Antonio River’s banks.

Not to be forgotten were visits to The Alamo, Fort Sam Houston – 5th Army Headquarters, San Fernando Cathedral, the historic Spanish Governor’s Palace, The Flying L -  an authentic Texas Dude Ranch, the Buckhorn Museum and Saloon housing the Texas Ranger Museum and one of the world’s largest collections of game mounts, Mission San Jose, El Mercado Mexican marketplace, LBJ Ranch, the National Museum of the Pacific War – Admiral Nimitz Museum, La Villita historic arts village, and the historic hill country town of Bandera, and the German influenced cities of Boerne and Fredericksburg.

Amusingly, our motorcoach driver took it upon herself (with permission of the tour director) to take a side trip to Luckenbach, Texas (pop. 25) in the middle of nowhere. Readers may remember, Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings making Luckenbach famous in a song by the same name.

We’ll never forget rolling in the isles of the tour bus while singing            Luckenbach, Texas as the coach motored through the “one-horse town” past storied “watering holes” and the town’s, since closed (1850-1971), US Post Office.